OLDER AMERICANS

After Social Security was created in 1935, a series of laws were passed that were meant to ensure older Americans had health and economic security as well as equal opportunity in employment and other areas of social life. These laws include the Social Security Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Medicaid, Medicare, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Older Americans Act, among others. Congress spends a lot of time reviewing, reauthorizing, and revising these programs. To make these laws real, people must have the right to take their cases to court if they are violated. Age discrimination cases appear regularly in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

Recent court decisions have made people's ability to get into court and to prove discrimination more difficult. And have also challenged Congress' ability to pass these sorts of federal protections. Right-wing activist judges have ruled that Congress can't pass laws that apply to state employers in many cases. So, for example, if a state employer discriminates against an older worker on the bases of age, that person cannot sue the state for violating the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Private individuals and organizations are having a much harder time enforcing their federal rights in court.

One of the chapters from the new book Awakening from the Dream explores the systematic dismantling of federal laws protecting our nation's senior citizens. Because the elderly tend to have greater needs than the rest of the adult populations, and less income with which to meet those needs, they are more dependent on government programs and protections.

Simon Lazarus, public policy counsel to the National Senior Citizens Law Center, writes about how the Supreme Court's recent decisions threaten crucial federal protections and jeopardizes the well-being of older Americans.

For more information, read the chapter.